Around the Industry:
LA WiFi in works
Don't worry - 3G network bandwidth will choke too
RIAA's new settlement website promoting P2P file sharing clients?
Time Warner: Maybe TV content is best displayed on - wait for it - a TV!
U.S. group wants Canada blacklisted over piracy
Samsung gear to boost WiMax speeds
SecurityBits:
Microsoft Vista has enormous gaping hole - by design
Microsoft patches 20 security vulnerabilities
Cisco warns of multiple IOS vulnerabilities
Study: 70% of websites are hackable
TidBytes:
Google loses copyright case in Belgium
Microsoft, Novell Detail Their Linux-Windows Roadmap
Firefox goes 'mainstream' with revamped add-ons
Six Men Arrested In China In Connection With Fujacks Worm
LG now accusing Apple Of Ripping Off iPhone Design
More broadband bytes inside...

Around The Industry:
•LA WiFi in works:
Los Angeles residents will be given free or inexpensive wireless Internet access within two years under an ambitious plan announced by city Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The LA WiFi Initiative, which would provide Internet services to the city's four million residents, will cost around 60 million dollars and would be funded by advertisers and telecommunication providers. The Los Angeles City Council will seek bids for the project later this year, and would seek to have the plan up and running by 2009, officials said.
•Don't worry - 3G network bandwidth will choke too:
"The exploding demand to view videos anywhere, anytime, will place a huge strain on today's 3G mobile networks. These networks were designed to manage low-bandwidth services like voice and data. Mobile video is possible on today's 3G networks, but only to a limited number of subscribers or for transmitting a basic broadcast service. If only 6 percent of wireless subscribers were to simultaneously view unique, streaming video during peak hours of use, our current mobile networks would be unable to support the load."
•RIAA's new settlement website promoting P2P file sharing clients?:
Mike from TechDirt notes: "The domain name that the RIAA registered for their new "pre-lawsuit" settlement packages (where you get a discount for not pointing out that their evidence is flimsy), it appears that the RIAA has put up a parked page that is full of ads pointing to all sorts of file sharing programs, many that include adware and spyware. As Eliot notes: "Does this mean the RIAA can be sued for contributory infringement?" Of course, it seems that someone over at the RIAA got wise to this and has now switched off the advertising on the domain. Still, I wonder how much money they made promoting P2P programs..."
•Time Warner: Maybe TV content is best displayed on - wait for it - a TV!:
Time Warner has ended an 18-month trial in San Diego that enabled high-speed data subscribers to view their entire basic cable programming offerings on their home PCs. Some 9,000 of Time Warner's Road Runner customers in two adjoining neighborhoods could watch up to 75 expanded basic cable channels on their computers for no extra charge. Fewer than 90 cable modem customers a day, less than 1% of the trial subscribers, opted to watch any TV shows on their computers. Time Warner executives say they will continue to explore the idea of video delivery to the PC. Its data engineers will develop a better scheme, but company officials declined to discuss any details right now.
•U.S. group wants Canada blacklisted over piracy:
A powerful coalition of U.S. software, movie and music producers is urging the Bush administration to put Canada on an infamous blacklist of intellectual property villains, alongside China, Russia and Belize. Canada's chronic failure to modernize its copyright regime has made it a global hub for bootleg movies, pirated software and tiny microchips that allow video-game users to bypass copyright protections, the International Intellectual Property Alliance complains in a submission to the U.S. government.
•Samsung gear to boost WiMax speeds:
Samsung Electronics showed off its new high-speed Mobile WiMAX technology at its 3GSM booth in Barcelona this week. Samsung says its Mobile WiMAX Wave 2 was able to reach a maximum download speed of 34 Mbps and an upload transfer rate of 8 Mbps during the trade show demonstration. Mobile WiMAX Wave 2, which works with MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output) and smart antenna technology, promises even higher speeds. Samsung says the technology can ultimately reach a maximum download speed of 40 Mbps and an upload transfer rate of 12 Mbps.
•Analysis: Voice Over Wireless LAN:
"Voice-Over-Wi-Fi, or Vo-Fi, is liberating: Employees break free of binding wires and dodge cellular costs, while IT realizes the ROI promise behind WLAN investments. But our tests show that delays in a fast-secure roaming spec could slow adoption in large enterprises, which will be loath to choose between security and voice quality. Moreover, like star athletes with steroid habits, Vo-Fi vendors must break their addictions--in this case, to proprietary methods of accomplishing everything from call access control to QoS--if they hope to move beyond their conventional vertical markets."
•No more mobile telly for the UK?:
Despite what participants claim are two successful trials of mobile TV in the UK, no more commercial launches for the service are planned. Qualcomm and Sky released the results of their second square-eyed dalliance. Meanwhile, IPWireless and its operator buddies, including 3 and Orange, revealed the completion of their Bristol-based experiment. Still, the operators have not committed to a full rollout but intend to examine how the finding could inform a commercial service. The UK currently has just one broadcast mobile TV offering, from BT Movio and Virgin Mobile, using the DAB-IP standard.
•Palo Alto approves wireless network test, considering $100 million network:
Members of Palo Alto's City Council approved a four-month test of a regional wireless network while scrutinizing the financial risks of the larger regional project. A group of businesses under the umbrella name of Metro Connect will construct the $100 million system. Led by IBM, the collaborative also includes Cisco, which will provide most of the equipment; Azulstar, the network operator; and SeaKay, a non-profit that will lead community outreach efforts. Metro Connect will own and operate the system, which will provide free outdoor public Internet access with tiers of enhanced services available to cities and businesses for a fee.
•EU mulls whether customers should be allowed to return online music:
People who buy online music should have a right to return it if they don't like it, according to a Green Paper. The paper tackles one of the problems that Apple is having with Norway and Sweden over the the "cooling off" period mandated by Scandinavian consumer protection laws. Norway and Sweden both say that users have the right to return any goods digital or otherwise. The EC quite likes the Scandinavian laws and wants to standardize them across Europe. The paper does not mention much about Apple's Fairplay interoperability which is probably going to get the iTunes jukebox banned from Norway and Sweden. It does talk about "problems" with music downloaded from the Internet and used on digital music players or mobiles. The EC might be taking the view that the DRM issue would be not be a problem if online music stores were forced to accept returns.

SecurityBits:
•Microsoft Vista has enormous gaping hole - by design:
Microsoft said its "highly secure" Vista operating system has a whopping great security hole in its User Account Control. According to the hackette who found it, Joanna Rutkowska, the UAC automatically assumes that all setup programs should be run with administrator privileges. So if "users" download the Tetris "game," they would have the choice of giving the program total rights to their file system, registry and kernel drivers or not run it. At no point did Vole wonder why a Tetris installer would be allowed to load kernel drivers. MS security has dismissed the hole, claiming that the way Vista allowed access to different bits of the operating system was not that easy. He admitted that it was a weakness, but that was really a "design choice."
•Microsoft patches 20 security vulnerabilities:
Microsoft delivered its monthly batch of security updates on February 13, delivering fixes for 20 individual problems in its products included in a dozen bulletins, six of which were dubbed as critical, the firm's most severe vulnerability rating. Security researchers highlighted Microsoft's move to shut down at least six product vulnerabilities that have been used in so-called zero-day attacks, or malware threats aimed at flaws previously unrecognized by the software maker. On the flip side, MS attempted to patch an embarrassing flaw in its own anti-virus software, issuing a patch for a critical problem in its Malware Protection Engine -- which is an element of nearly all the company's security products, including its Windows Live OneCare.
•Cisco warns of multiple IOS vulnerabilities:
Cisco Systems announced there are several vulnerabilities in the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) feature set of its Internetwork Operating System (IOS). Fragmented IP packets may be used to evade signature inspection, according to a warning on Cisco's website. It also warned that the IPS signatures utilizing the regular expression feature of the ATOMIC.TCP signature engine may cause a router to crash, resulting in a denial of service. Cisco's IOS is software used in a lot of its routers and current network switches.
•Study: 70% of websites are hackable:
About 70% of websites contain vulnerabilities that put them at risk of being hacked, according to a new study issued by Acunetix, a website security company. "The results show clearly that the problem of unsafe web applications is being ignored completely," said Acunetix in a written statement. "These statistics should compel organizations to take a serious look at their security infrastructure. The recent hacks into TJX, UCLA, and Dolphin Stadium are proof enough that the problem is very real and looks like it is here to stay. Companies, governments, and universities are bound by law to protect our data. Yet Web application security is, at best, overlooked as a fad. Without sounding apocalyptic, I believe the 70% figure should send tremors, not just ripples, in the market."

Hardware, Software, and other TidBytes:
•Google loses copyright case in Belgium
• Microsoft, Novell Detail Their Linux-Windows Roadmap
•Firefox goes 'mainstream' with revamped add-ons
•Six Men Arrested In China In Connection With Fujacks Worm
•LG now accusing Apple Of Ripping Off iPhone Design
•Internet plan for MTV video clips
•No 'Second Life' for Microsoft's Vista
•'Last mile' may be light-centric
•LinuxWorld Opens in NYC